Inglourious Basterds begins in German-occupied France, where Shosanna Dreyfus (Mélanie Laurent) witnesses the execution of her family at the hand of Nazi Colonel Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz). Shosanna narrowly escapes and flees to Paris, where she forges a new identity as the owner and operator of a cinema. Elsewhere in Europe, Lieutenant Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) organizes a group of Jewish soldiers to engage in targeted acts of retribution. Known to their enemy as "The Basterds," Raine's squad joins German actress and undercover agent Bridget Von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger) on a mission to take down the leaders of The Third Reich. Fates converge under a cinema marquee, where Shosanna is poised to carry out a revenge plan of her own...I loved this movie. I have always been a huge Tarantino fan and was totally psyched when I saw this trailer. My expectations then were destroyed when I found out that the parts of the trailer did no justice whatsoever to what actually goes on in the movie, that it was 2 1/2 hours long and that at least 2/3 - 3/4 of the movie are in subtitles. I always got turned off a little bit when Tarantino's scripts got out of control chatty and the thought of reading it all via subtitles was not intriguing in the least. Now, I don't know how much my lower expectations effected my viewing of the movie but as I mentioned before - I loved this movie. Like I said - the parts with Brad Pitt and company that fill the trailer with all the violence make up such a small (and violent) part of the movie. The best part of the movie is the part of Nazi colonel Hans Landa played by Christoph Waltz. This guy had better get an academy award nomination. He was phenomenal. You find yourself glued to watching him speak the same way you were when Hannibal Lecter spoke to Clarice or when The Joker speaks in The Dark Knight. I found myself totally mesmerized as he talked people in circles about absolutely nothing and then flipped the switch into actually interrogating them. He (and Tarantino's script for his character) totally made this movie. Tarantino also did an awesome job of building up the tension towards the eventual awesome climax. As always, it could have been shorter and there could have been much less talking but Tarantino did an awesome job of having all his seperate little stories come together and he did it without jumping back and forth like he usually does.
I strongly recommend this movie to everyone. Its my favorite movie of the year at this point. Yes, its long. Yes, there are subtitles. Yes, there are some pretty violent parts. Its awesome filmmaking though. Its not Pulp Fiction/Reservoir Dogs good, but its easily Kill Bill good if not better.
